


Flowers Strewn

by sonneta



Category: Shakespeare - Hamlet
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Leopold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-17
Updated: 2010-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonneta/pseuds/sonneta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hat tip to:  Santa Clara University's Medieval Gardens site; Helena Faucit (Lady Martin)'s essay on Ophelia; Wikipedia; and Spark Notes.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Flowers Strewn

**Author's Note:**

> Hat tip to: Santa Clara University's Medieval Gardens site; Helena Faucit (Lady Martin)'s essay on Ophelia; Wikipedia; and Spark Notes.

The part of King Hamlet's castle that Ophelia loved best was the garden. The rest of the castle, her new home, was dreary at best- it was all thick stone walls and narrow windows. It always seemed cold, even now in spring, no matter how many shawls she wore or whether or not the fire was burning.  


But outside, there was light and warmth. Today, she sampled the berries of spring. She startled slightly at a polite cough, and turned.  


"Oh! Prince Hamlet," she blushed. She had seen the handsome prince in the castle, but had never stood so close to him. "I apologize; I didn't know you were here."  


"No, fair Ophelia. It is I who must apologize. I did not mean to startle you."  


"It's perfectly alright. It is your garden, after all." They began walking the path along the garden's edge.  


"This is your house, now, too. The garden is more yours than mine. I've seen you out here every day since you arrived."  


She smiled. "It reminds me of my own- old garden. Look," she said, picking a flower, "Here's Rosemary. That's for remembrance." _I'll always remember this._ She blushed at the thought.  


"And how do you come to know so much about plant life?" Hamlet asked.  


"From Anne, our old gardener. She taught me everything about plants," Ophelia explained. "My mother died having me, and my father is always busy with affairs of state. My brother is very often away, as well. It fell to the house-servants to care for me, and Anne fairly adopted me."  


Ophelia stopped, wondering if she had said too much. But Hamlet had such tenderness in his eyes.  


"Care to have a seat?" He asked, gesturing to the bench nearby.  


She nodded, and then thrilled as he gently placed a hand on her back. _Perhaps,_ she thought, _Hamlet's castle wasn't so bad, after all._  


* * *

After that, Hamlet would often join her for a stroll around the garden. One particular day, the winds were changing. It was bleak for a summer day, and the sky was a dull gray. Hamlet and Ophelia walked close together now, he often escorting her with a linked arm.  


"Ophelia, my dearest love. There is something I must tell you," he said.  


"Yes, Hamlet?" She answered, her eyes bright with hope of a proposal.  


"My darling, I must away to Wittenberg. College, you know. I have a few courses left to finish," Hamlet said.  


Ophelia sat on what she thought of as _their_ bench. "Oh, my prince! What a hearty blow it will be, to live in this gloomy castle without you."  


Hamlet sat next to her, taking her hands in his. "Ophelia. Do not fret. Are you not my love? I love you eternally, to the highest heaven. I swear by God--" here Ophelia gaped at him in shock-- "Yes, by God Himself that I will love you always, and most highly."  


Ophelia threw herself into Hamlet's arms. "Oh, darling! Do come back to me soon. Oh, do."  


It was the best day of her life thus far and the worst- he loved her, most truly; but he was also leaving her.  


* * *

A few months later, King Hamlet died. They said he had died in his sleep. Ophelia was sad, and incredibly sorry for _her_ Hamlet, of course, but she couldn't help but be glad that he was returning home.  


She saw him roaming the halls soon after he came back.  


"Hamlet?" She called to him.  


"Ophelia. My best beloved," he said, but his voice belied his weary sadness.  


She took his arm, much as he used to take hers in the garden. They walked along the corridor.  


"Hamlet. I know not what to say. I know all too well the pain of losing a parent-- though I do not even remember my mother." She squeezed his arm. "I am here, love."  


He smiled sadly at her. "Oh, you are the dearest girl. Having you here is a comfort, love." He took her hand in his own, and kissed it.  


* * *

Two months later, Hamlet was still in mourning. He still gave her love letters, but there were no more walks in the garden- Hamlet seemed to despise the place, since that was where his father had died. Ophelia still went there, but it was bittersweet now. Anyway, it was the dead of winter, and nothing was in bloom to admire or sample.  


Her brother Laertes came to see her in her chambers. He was leaving again. _Why did men always leave you?_ She wondered. He was going back to France. He made her promise to write him, but in truth, it would be he who would forget to write.  


And then, he had something to say about Hamlet.  


"For Hamlet and the trifling of his favor, hold it in a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward not permanent, sweet not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute, no more," Laertes said.  


Ophelia was stricken. Her Hamlet? Who had but months ago professed his unending love? "No more but such?" She asked.  


Her mind reeling, she could barely make sense of Laertes's entreaty to her. He begged her not to lose her heart- or her virginity.  


"I shall th'effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart," she promised. "But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven whilst a puffed and reckless libertine himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede," she warned. _It would be just like him, too, to tell me one thing and then go and do the opposite,_ she thought. _I'faith, I doubt he has as much concern for other men's sisters._  


Laertes told her not to worry about him. And then her father came in to admonish her as well. She wondered if they weren't in this together-- she suspected that her father had asked Laertes to say something to her, hoping she would be receptive to a brother's council, if not a father's. Laertes was on his way, and her father gave his speech.  


Her father proscribed caution, but Ophelia was quick to defend Hamlet. "He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me."  


Polonius scoffed. "Affection, pooh! You speak like a green girl unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his `tenders' as you call them?"  


Ophelia stopped, unsure. Hamlet had hardly spoken to her for two months. "I do not know, my lord, what I should think," she admitted.  


"Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby that you have ta'en his tenders for true pay, which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly, or-- not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, running it thus-- you'll tender me a fool."  


Ophelia was offended, for herself and for Hamlet. He spoke as if she would give her love away, her _reputation_ away easily! "My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion--"  


"Ay, fashion you may call it," Polonius interrupted. "Go to, go to."  


Ophelia pressed on, still defending her one and only love, "And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with all the vows of heaven."  


But Polonius did not believe her, and made her promise not to see or talk to Hamlet again. She was crushed, but what could she do? He was her father, and she was completely under his control.  


"I shall obey, my lord," she intoned dully.  


Ophelia waited until her father left her chambers, then she collapsed on her bed and cried into her comforter.  


* * *

A week or so later, Ophelia was sewing in her chamber. She was dreadfully bored-- it was really too cold to go outside, she felt she had read all the interesting books in the library, and she couldn't even talk to Hamlet.  


Just then, someone entered her chamber. She looked up, and was shocked. It was Hamlet, but he was all at odds. His doublet was unbraced, he had no hat on, and his stockings were down around his ankles. He was terribly pale, and his face looked very frightened.  


He reached out, and took her wrist.  


"Hamlet. You're hurting me," she said, trying to pull her hand away, but he just held on harder.  


Then he stared at her. And stared some more, until Ophelia blushed and looked away in discomfort. Hamlet sighed, and let go of her arm. Then he left, turning his head to look at her the whole time.  


She was distressed after this show, and so went to find her father. She told him what had happened, and Polonius wondered if Hamlet had gone mad- from love for her.  


"My lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it," she confessed, her voice shaking. They spoke some more, and Polonius decided to go see the new king, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius.  


Back in her room, she turned over this predicament in her mind. Her beloved was mad--possibly because she had rejected him! But, she had only done what her father had ordered. It wasn't what she had wanted to do.  


Polonius had taken her letters and such from Hamlet. But she had copied one, word for word, in her diary. It was one he had written only recently, and it had broken her heart to be unable to answer it. She read it to herself, as she contemplated:  
 _To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia, these in her excellent white bosom, these_  
Doubt thou that the stars are fire,  
Doubt that the sun doth move,  
Doubt the truth to be a liar,  
But never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia. I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.  


How could she have disbelieved him? Yes, he had been reticent these past several weeks. But he was grieving the loss of his father-- a loss she both empathized with, and knew little of. She had lost her mother, but she also never knew her mother. And her father had never tried to bring in a new mother. How heart-sick Hamlet must be. She bit her lip and cried for him again. Oh, what was to be done!  


* * *

Later, her father and King Claudius decided to observe Hamlet with her, to see if they could understand the cause of his madness.  


The dear Queen Gertrude was quite kind to her. She came up to Ophelia, and placed a gentle arm around her shoulders.  


She said, "And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness; so shall I hope your virtues will bring him to his wonted way again, to both your honors."  


"Madam, I wish it may," she admitted.  


Then Polonius sat her in a chair in the library, pretending to read, "that show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness," he said. He and King Claudius hid out of sight.  


Hamlet came in, and stopped to... talk to himself, it seemed. Ophelia wondered for a moment how far his mind had gone, but she focused her sight on her book. When Hamlet came closer, she greeted him. As she had agreed with her father to do, she attempted to give him back the trinkets he had given her during their affair.  


But Hamlet said, "No, no, I never gave you aught."  


"My honoured lord," Ophelia said, "you know right well you did, and with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, take these again; for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord." She pushed the pile into his hands.  


"Are you honest?" Hamlet asked.  


She was confused, unsure she had heard correctly. "My lord."  


"Are you fair?" Hamlet asked.  


Now she was growing flustered. "What means your lordship?"  


"That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty," he said.  


She was a bit angry-- of what was he accusing her, exactly? He had to know there was no one else for her; and she certainly had never professed love to, nor even held hands with, another.  


"Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?" She asked.  


"Ay, truly, for the power of the beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once," Hamlet said.  


Ophelia's anger grew. Could he really question her virtue such, and in front of her father?  


"Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so," she stated coolly.  


"You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not," he said.  


So there it was, plain. Perhaps Laertes and her father had been right-- it was all just a trifle for him.  


"I was the more deceived," she said, managing to hold her voice steady.  


He continued to slander her virtue, telling her to "Get thee to a nunnery." Did he mean an actual nunnery, where she would be wed to God? Or to a nunnery in the more vulgar usage of whore house? His words felt like slaps in the face.  


"O help him, you sweet heavens!" She called out. Though he disparaged her virtue, she believed it might be his madness that caused him to do so. Surely a sane Hamlet could never believe her unfaithful?  


"O heavenly powers, restore him!" Ophelia prayed again.  


And then he all but said he would never marry her, and told her again to get to a nunnery; and then he was gone.  


For a moment she forgot about her father and the king, and mused to herself. She was the most dejected and wretched of ladies-- formerly nearly engaged to a great prince; now tossed aside and written off as a slattern. She had seen Hamlet's former wit and poetry; now she saw his madness, "Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh," she said to herself.  


Then her father and Claudius entered again, and Claudius said Hamlet would be sent to England for a respite. She would be sad to see him go, but hoped that England would restore her beloved, where she could not.  


* * *

Before Hamlet was to leave, he put on a play. It was a most strange situation-- Ophelia wondered what would come of it.  


Hamlet sat next to her, and lay his head in her lap. Very strange indeed. He continued to be quite ribald. She was unused to such coarse talk from him. Usually he was all sweetness and poetry with her.  


He explained the play as it went along, causing her to remark he was good as a chorus. And then, after the player-king was poisoned by his brother, Ophelia saw Claudius stand.  


"The King rises," she said.  


"What, frighted with false fire?" Hamlet asked.  


But Ophelia thought she might see what Hamlet was playing at. Gertrude asked Ophelia if he was well, and Polonius said to give over the play. Claudius called for lights, and then he walked out of the theatre.  


Ophelia knew not what to do, so she followed all the rest (save Hamlet and his friend Horatio) out of the theatre.  


How odd. Had Claudius truly poisoned King Hamlet? He certainly acted like a rabbit caught in a trap. What would her Hamlet do, if his uncle truly had been the cause of his father's death?  


She tried to imagine if her father had been killed. She could hardly seek vengeance for her mother's death-- she herself was responsible for that, some would say. Anne always told her that her mother's death was not her fault, but who else could be to blame?  


* * *

Later that same day, as she was sewing again, she heard some servants whispering.  


"He is dead, you know. I saw it with mine own eyes," one maid said.  
Ophelia stopped, and listened to their talk.  


"Really? I hardly believe it- that Hamlet killed Polonius," the other said.  


Ophelia gasped. Could it be true? Was her father dead? She coughed clearly.  


"I am sorry to intrude, but I overheard your conversation. What--what have you heard about my father?"  


The first maid curtseyed. "Sorry to tell you, miss, but he's right dead. Hamlet killed `im with his own hands, he did. Stabbed him right through."  


"But... where is he? Where's my father... my father's body?" Ophelia asked.  


"They buried him, I think, Lady," the second maid said. "In secret, so no one would know of the terrible deed."  
 _My father... my father is dead._ Ophelia thought.  


"Leave me, please," she said, standing.  


The maids curtseyed again, and scurried out of the room.  


"My father's dead. My father. He's dead," Ophelia said to herself. "My mother is dead. My brother is gone." She paced the floor. "My father is dead, my mother is dead and I killed her. My brother is gone, he's always gone, and Hamlet is mad! There's no one... no one to take care of me. Who will take care of me? What shall I do?" She moaned, tears streaming down her face.  


And that was when Ophelia's poor mind shattered.  


* * *

The world was bright. Far too bright. The edges of the castle seemed much too sharp. There was ice on the trees, and it made them so beautiful... so beautiful, and so delicate. So vulnerable.  


Ophelia went to see the Queen. Her mother. No, not her mother, her mother died when she was born. Her Anne. No, not her Anne, her Anne had been left behind when they had moved.  


Her hair was down, wild and frizzy in the dry air.  


"How now, Ophelia?" Asked Queen Gertrude. But Ophelia paid no mind. She sang a song that Anne had sung to her- a naughty song.  


"How should I your true love know from another one?--By his cockle hat and staff, and by his sandal shoon," she sang.  


"Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?" Gertrude asked.  


"Say you? Nay, pray you, mark," she said. _My father is dead and gone, and my only beloved killed him,_ she thought. "He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone. At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone," she sang. Another song from Anne.  


Gertrude and Claudius kept trying to talk to her, but Ophelia just sang. And then a thought came to her.  


"I hope all will be well. We must be patient," she said. "But I cannot choose but weep to think they should lay him i'th' cold ground. My brother shall know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night."  


For what she had realized was: Laertes, her brother, did not yet know of their father's death. He must be told, and all would be a right. Or rather, nothing would, but yet, he must know.  


* * *

After she had told Laertes, he went to see King Claudius. And then she gathered flowers in her garden. She did not know they were imaginary flowers, as it was winter, and she could have died of cold. In her mind, they were real.  


She took the flowers in to Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes.  


Laertes said something, but she could make no sense of it. And so she sang again.  


"They bore him barefaced on the bier, hey non nony, nony, hey nony, and on his grave rained many a tear--fair you well, my dove," she sang.  


Laertes missed his part of the song, and said something else.  


"You must sing, `Down, a-down,'" she told him. "And you," she said to Gertrude, "Call him a down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter."  


She remembered her flowers.  


She handed some to Laertes. "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray, love, remember. And there is pansies; that's for thoughts."  


She moved on to Gertrude. "There's fennel for you, and columbines." And then there was Claudius. "There's rue for you, and some for me. We may call it herb-grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end."  


She nodded sadly. Then she brightened, and started to sing again, "For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy."  


She sang some more, and then left their cozy company. _There must be more flowers somewhere,_ she thought. Perhaps down by the river?  


* * *

Ophelia went down to the brook, and found a willow tree.  


"O la! How beautiful!" She said, though really it looked rather sad in winter. She gathered up some dead flowers from the meadow, and climbed up into the tree.  


She sang to herself as she made make-shift garlands and daisy chains. And then the branch broke, and she fell.  


The water was cold and dark, and Ophelia shivered. She caught sight of the sun, and she smiled in remembrance of dancing under it in warmer times, in her garden. Her petticoats filled with water, and she was dragged under. She breathed air, and then water.  
 _Good night, sweet lady. Good night._


End file.
